Tom's top target for comic opera

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Tom Cruise remains one of Hollywood's biggest stars, but since
his manic, couch-hopping appearance on The Oprah Winfrey
Show last month, he also has leaped to the forefront of
celebrity punch lines.

The 42-year-old actor has become the butt of jokes from late-night
television comedians, tabloid columnists, internet spoof artists
and pranksters in the midst of promoting one of this summer's most
heavily publicised films.

Cruise drew the kind of attention most celebrities go out of their
way to avoid in late May when he spent the better part of an
hour-long interview with Winfrey giddily professing his love for
actress Katie Holmes, 26.

Footage of the twice-married Cruise on Oprah, jumping on the guest
sofa, dropping to one knee to pump his fist and ushering Holmes on
stage to declare, "I love this woman!" has been played repeatedly.
Bootleg copies were selling on eBay for $US20 ($26)

The interview triggered suspicions of a shameless publicity stunt
to promote his new film, War of the Worlds, and hers,
Batman Begins.

The two upped the ante weeks later with a Paris news conference to
announce their engagement.

The couple got engaged at the Eiffel Tower just two months after
revealing their relationship. No wedding date has been
announced.

"It's a sign of the celebrity-market bubble that a bona fide,
top-gun movie star has to make such a spectacle of himself just to
stand out from the crowd. There's such a glut of celebrities that
they'll soon have to begin storing the surplus in silos in Iowa,"
he wrote.

Adding to the controversy has been Cruise's recent intense public
discussions of his belief in Scientology, the church founded by
science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, including criticism of
actress Brooke Shields for revealing that she had taken
antidepressants.

In a testy exchange on NBC's Today show on Friday, Cruise
called psychiatry a "pseudo science" and told co-host Matt Lauer:
"You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

Cruise's behaviour has ignited speculation that he might damage his
image and undermine the success of his movies.

"He needs to remain enough of a blank slate that we can forget
about him as a person when we see his movies," said Marty Kaplan, a
University of Southern California professor of communications.

"Whether we can still suspend disbelief, or whether all we can
think about while watching him act is L Ron Hubbard and Oprah will
be measured by his movie's grosses."

The fallout also has begotten a kind of open season of snickers
rare for a movie star of Cruise's stature, putting him into a
category of big-game celebrity prey recently occupied by the likes
of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.

"Tom and Katie got engaged on Friday and, once again, the media
somehow found out about it," late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel said
on his show last week.

"If we promise to go see War of the Worlds, will you
please make this stop?"

In Britain, a group of TV pranksters squirted Cruise in the face
with water when he stepped up to a faux microphone.

They were arrested and an apology was issued, but film clips of the
incident circulated on the internet.

Allan Mayer of the Hollywood "crisis PR firm" Sitrick & Co,
said Cruise's recent soul-baring reflects his decision to cast off
the carefully controlled "packaging" that publicists provide most
stars.

By firing long-time personal publicist Pat Kingsley and replacing
her with his sister, Mayer said, Cruise "has decided, 'I'm not
going to be very carefully groomed when I speak in public. 'I'm
going to speak my mind ... and let the chips fall where they
may.'"
Reuters